


But Things Will Always Change

by loquaciouslass



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, depictions of gore, dreamy fic, very angry brain arguments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 19:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10578261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciouslass/pseuds/loquaciouslass
Summary: They're not meant to stay the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I had even a vague idea of what I was thinking when I wrote this.

Crystals are the type of thing that most people would use as a symbol of immortality; they are perfectly stable, molecules arranged into rigid structures that develop the sort of properties common folk would name ‘magic’. They attract superstition and sentimentality. And perhaps, a long time ago, Lucrecia might’ve scoffed. 

 

Not so much now. The cave is falling apart past her thick barrier, cracks running along the floor and walls, leaving ruin in their wake. Lucrecia can hardly keep track of time within this prison, but the screaming earth isn’t meant to leave glowing, green trails as it collapses in on itself. It’s not meant to be like this. 

 

Something rumbles in the back of her mind, and she knows; this is no mere earthquake. 

 

The crystal stands firm, nonetheless, and she retreats back once a phantom fire begins to crawl up her back. 

 

Lucrecia’s mindscape has never been a kind place. It used to be pastels and puffy clouds, floating over scorched coals where evil eyes hovered just above the ground. Then it was peaceful, still water in a dark cave. 

 

Now it has a permanent resident. It’s lit with electric blue, blinding against the abyss, but there’s still a pool of water below Lucrecia’s feet, reflecting shadows and lights to the ceiling. 

 

At least, it reflected shadows for a moment. A red light shines out, an omen in the darkness, and quicksilver spills into the pool. 

 

Perhaps a shadow, perhaps a nightmare, but rather more dangerous than any descriptor could suggest. A hand, marred with scars, shoots up and grabs Lucrecia’s wrist. There’s nothing to do but stand firm and face  _ her _ .

 

She looks as she always does, a corpse bloated by water with skin half-stripped away and inches of muscle exposed, hair limp over her face like a priest going to prayer. And had it been the waking world, when Lucrecia could smell the rot, she would have recoiled. 

 

No longer. She can smell nothing but salt and stale water here. 

 

“I felt you calling,” she says, finally, when Jenova is standing tall before her, looking down into her eyes, “What is it?” 

 

Jenova hasn’t let go of her hand. She squeezes, tight, and the cold shoots through Lucrecia’s bones like a bullet. 

 

_ Your world is ending.  _

 

And then she’s back in the rubble, back no longer burning and crystal slightly cracked. 

 

The world is ending. The world is ending. 

 

Right. Of course it would happen one day. The crystal held out, would hold out a little longer, and then Lucrecia will die in space and take Jenova with her. 

 

For the best. A way to atone for her sins, and a way to spite the Calamity by leaving her to float, powerless, until she falls into a star and burns up for eternity. It’s fine. It’s-

 

It’s suddenly fire and ice all at once, dragging her down to the mindscape before she’s the shadow underwater, looking up into hellfire or supernovas or the screams of a dying star-

 

_ Your world is ending! _

 

Jenova doesn’t talk much. She says things through the mind itself, sensations rippling along with a few words placed directly into Lucrecia’s brain, and it was easy to see why, once Jenova’s body had been splayed out for an autopsy come vivisection. No vocal folds, cartilage at the glottis strangely formed like the rocks arounds the ocean, tongue half cut off and lungs thick with fluid. She isn’t designed to talk, or rather, she hasn’t designed herself to talk. Perhaps it’s personality. Perhaps it’s something else. 

 

It doesn’t make the way she does speak any better though, because her anger is currently ripping through Lucrecia like fire in a drought. It’s burning hot, the words pounding against her skull and refusing to cease until there’s  _ ice _ on her wrist and Jenova is face to face with her. 

 

There’s nothing she can do, no matter how she bares her teeth, and Lucrecia is fine with that. Let the punishment come from the fallen angel and she will have atoned for her sins. 

 

_ Do not,  _ she says with thunder in her bones,  _ even think to use me like that. Your world is ending.  _

 

“What does that mean?” Lucrecia says, “Why do you care if the world is ending? That’s what you want!” 

 

_ You know nothing of what I want! Your world is ending, dying, and you will use that as a way to do nothing?! _

 

Though Jenova has her, gripped tight and close enough to bite, there’s a great gulf between them. Lucrecia’s never thought about it before, not when Jenova was gutted like a fish and not when the visions plagued her. Not even when she took the cells into herself. 

 

Lucrecia looks into Jenova’s eye, and breathes. Everything from her brain to her nerves to her skin is inhuman, warped to look fine from afar and instill horror up close. She is not human. 

 

But Jenova has a brain, and she has nerves, and if this were the waking world then Jenova would’ve broken her wrist by how tight she’s holding it. There’s an emotion in there, maybe recognisable, maybe not. But it’s there. 

 

The fire drops and Jenova’s grip becomes just a little looser. She swallows, hard, and something in her throat changes. 

 

“Why...won’t you do anything?” She says, finally, out-loud. “Why stay here to spite me when there are a million ways in the world that would make you happier?” 

 

Her voice is strange. More like two voices speaking at once in a tangle of accents, softer than expected. Like water drops in a silent pond. Lucrecia brushes the curtain of silver out of her face, exposing the scars and bare bone that hides behind it. 

 

Why. Why not run and enjoy the world? Why not live out life and then let this creature snuff out all the others, once her patience wears thin? Why not indulge, ignore all wrong-doing?

 

Jenova is not human, and though she may feel emotion, she is still  _ vile _ . A killer. A creature with no morals. 

 

“I want to spite you,” Lucrecia says, pulling her down, “because you deserve it. You’re the worst thing that ever happened to this planet. You’re the worst thing that ever happened to  _ me, _ and I just  _ let you do it!” _

 

The water ripples. The air turns cold. Jenova’s face untwists itself from the snarl into a carefully blank canvas, head tilted, staring. 

 

She lets go. Lucrecia still has her hair, gripped like a leash. “You’re awful,” Lucrecia whispers, “And you’re the only awful thing I can make right. If I have to trap myself in a dying world so that you never do what you did to this place anywhere else...then that’s all I can do…” 

 

She thinks she’s crying. There’s lines of heat running along her face. 

 

“I hate you.” Lucrecia says. “I hate you so much.” 

 

Jenova says nothing, she just pulls away. There’s a heavy sigh. The water ripples once more, and Jenova is gone. 

  
  


In reality is lava, cutting into the crystal. Fear bubbles in her chest, but it’s fine. Jenova will die, she will die, and then there will be nothing. 

The crystal shatters, her legs catch the fire, and Lucrecia screams. Cells burn away, muscles, bones, all vanishing into the boiling heat, all pain she deserves, pain she wants, pain that she’s put off for so many years because she’s too much of a coward to just off herself-

 

Every part of her is on fire. Every part of her will die, and no one will remember her. Jenova will die. 

 

This is the only way to atone. Jenova can scream all she likes. The red is burning into her vision. 

 

_ You would die, here, just to spite me?! You would do nothing and claim it’s atonement?! You’ve done nothing! Nothing!  _

 

Hurts, hurts, painful, oh god she’s being eaten alive by the planet itself, the planet hates her-

 

Her own mouth cracks open and her own voice is coloured by salt water and cosmic fury-

 

“I will  _ not _ let you die just to  _ spite _ me!” 

 

Screaming hurts, hurts, hurts, legs forming back fast, furious oh god it hurts bones reforming hair stretching out blackness gone gone gone gone-

 

Gone. 

 

Gone. 

 

Gone. 

 

Lucrecia wakes up in a pool of water, with glowing lights and a shadow looking up at her. She holds out her hand and the fresh corpse rises up. 

 

Lucrecia brushes Jenova’s hair out of her face, and sees her own eye in the once empty socket. 

 

“Coward,” Jenova says, softly, “You don’t get to die like that.” 

 

Lucrecia screams. 


End file.
